Electric shadows
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Today in the East Asian Languages and Civilizations departmental colloquium, our colleague Ayako Kano gave a talk on the celebrated Akira Kurosawa (1910-1998) film, "Rashomon" (1950). During the Q & A, we went rather deeply into the author's creative use of shadows in his cinematography.
I commented that all Japanese filmmakers, and indeed probably all Japanese filmviewers, must be at least subliminally aware of the key role that shadows play in film production, since the Japanese word for "cinema" is den'ei でんえい 電影 ("electric shadows"). Or perhaps I should say "was", since I think that the Japanese word for "film" may now have migrated to "shinema シネマ" and / or eiga 映画 ("image picture").
cinema
Borrowed from French cinéma, clipping of cinématographe (term coined by the Lumière brothers in the 1890s), from Ancient Greek κίνημα (kínēma, “movement”) + γράφω (gráphō, “write, record”). Compare German Kino (“cinema”), ultimately from the same Greek source.
But I definitely saw the character "ei 影" in the very first frame of "Rashomon", which gives the credits for the film.
Here I will just add this note on the origin of the term "shadow" in relation to this artistic medium. For that we have to go back to shadow puppets and shadow plays as excelled in by performers of India, Indonesia, and Turkey. See Victor H. Mair, Painting and Performance: Chinese Picture Recitation and Its Indian Genesis (University of Hawai'i Press, 1989). The crucial moment in the invention of proto-cinema was the detachment of the figures from the picture scrolls on which they had been painted, making them free to move across the screen to which they had formerly been attached (i.e., were a part of), e.g., wayang bèbèr ꦮꦪꦁꦧꦺꦧꦺꦂ becomes wayang kulit ꦮꦪꦁꦏꦸꦭꦶꦠ꧀, as it were.
Selected readings
- Keith Rawlings, "The Sutradhar and the Ringgit: A Study of Terms Related to the Early Puppet Theatres", Sino-Platonic Papers, 332 (April, 2023), 1-40.
- "The swazzle: a simple device for voice modulation" (10/11/15)
- "Royal language" (9/29/15)
Jim Breen said,
March 5, 2026 @ 1:11 am
電影 is a rare and dated word in Japanese, and doesn't appear at all in the major Japanese-English dictionaries. The Japanese dictionaries, e.g. 大辞泉, gloss it as "lighting" and have a second sense mentioning it's the Chinese word for film.
Victor Mair said,
March 5, 2026 @ 1:23 am
Interesting, Jim. No wonder all the Japanese specialists in the room looked mystified when I mentioned the term and requested to go back to that first frame. They were surprised when they saw that there it was in the first frame where I said it was.
Much of our detailed discussion had been taken up with skilled lighting and the resultant shadow effects on he screen.
martin schwartz said,
March 5, 2026 @ 1:33 am
Under "Schatten 1923" (Eng. "Warning Shadows") one can see,
if one has patience for it all, an expressionist film
in which shadow puppets play a central role, sort of.
Martin Schwartz
Jim Breen said,
March 5, 2026 @ 4:16 am
"lighting" -> "lightning".
Chris Button said,
March 5, 2026 @ 7:02 am
Perhaps you saw 影 in the word 撮影 "cinematography"?
The 撮影 is by Miyagawa Kazuo, and it is absolutely outstanding.
Jonathan Smith said,
March 5, 2026 @ 11:59 am
Interesting lexeme although e.g. Mand. ying3zi 影子 does not mean 'shadow' per se but "image" type things inclusive of e.g. a reflection. (Apparent) cognate Tw. iann2 often refers metaphorically to trace/substance of something. Nature of historical relationship of the above to items written "景" e.g. Mand. jing3 is debated; such word(s) in historical texts at times do name a thing English would call "shadow"…
David Soler said,
March 5, 2026 @ 7:45 pm
Japanese would know the term "denei," but it would sound strange, even with Japanese pronunciation. Mangaka Masakazu Katsura penned a series called "Denei Shojo Ai" (1989-1992), which was translated into English as "Video Girl Ai."
J.W. Brewer said,
March 9, 2026 @ 7:55 pm
This belatedly reminded me of the Tanazaki book whose title in English translation is "In Praise of Shadows." But the "shadow" word there turns out to be (per wikipedia) 陰翳 in the original.